The word 'critical" has three meanings which are dangerous, important, and disapproving. The purpose of this blog is to examine important or over-looked cultural, political, artistic, or historical issues of our time. Also, this blog is intended to be educational.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Great Thinkers, Great Thoughts: Albert Schweitzer

Born
on January 14, 1875 in a country village in Alsace (then part of Germany; later
part of France), Albert Schweitzer was the son of a Lutheran pastor. A
little-known fact is that Jean Paul Sartre was Schweitzer's cousin. Because of
the difference in their ages, Sartre referred to him always as "Uncle
Al."

Albert Schweitzer

From an early age he showed a passion and talent for playing the organ, and was
accepted as a pupil by some of Europe's finest professionals. He later went on
to become the world's leading expert on organ building. In 1893, Albert
Schweitzer began his studies at the University of Strasbourg, receiving a
Doctorate in Philosophy in 1899; his studies also took him to the Sorbonne and
the University of Berlin. Later that year he was appointed to the pastoral
staff of St. Nicholai's Church in Strasbourg. In 1900, he obtained an advanced
degree in theology, and within the next two years was appointed principal of
St. Thomas College in Strasbourg, Curate at St. Nicholai, and to the faculty in
both theology and philosophy at University of Strasbourg. Along the way, Dr.
Schweitzer published several books on theology, including the most famous, The
Quest for the Historical Jesus, as well as books on Kant, perhaps the
definitive biography of Bach, books on organ building, and others.

Helene Bresslau Schweitzer

Schweitzer had always felt a strong yearning towards direct service to
humanity. In 1904, he came by chance upon an article in the Paris Missionary
Society's publication indicating their urgent need for physicians in the French
colony of Gabon. Despite all the resistance and protestations he encountered,
in January 1905, at the age of 30, Albert Schweitzer began his studies in
medicine, receiving his degree with a specialization in tropical medicine and
surgery at the age of 38. What he had not anticipated was that, even though Dr.
Schweitzer had rearranged his life to meet the most urgent need expressed by
The Paris Missionary Society, they turned him down! On the basis of his
theological views, Albert Schweitzer, minister and now physician, was rejected
by the Society on the grounds that "it would only intensify their problem by encouraging intellectuals and
freethinkers who could only disrupt the mission enterprise and confuse the
natives with their theological improvisations... They were not about to sponsor
Schweitzer and open the floodgates to other liberals and radicals." Today,
we would characterize the Paris Missionary's view of Albert Schweitzer as a
person who was "politically incorrect!"

Yet, as Marshall and Poling have characterized it, he was learning that controversy could not destroy him. Delay him, yes,
but not defeat him... He would return to the Paris MissionarySociety not as a beggar soliciting support
but as a self-sufficient doctor offering his professional services. They, not
he, as he saw it, would have a chance to redeem themselves; there would be
another confrontation with the Society. Helene Bresslau, by now Dr.
Schweitzer's wife and a trained nurse, "eagerly joined her husband in a program
of fund-raising to supply a hospital and underwrite the expenses for its first
two years. They compiled lists of friends who might help... And if they could
successfully raise the money, they could tell the Society that it would cost
them nothing... Their list of names expanded... For eight years he had studied
and prepared for his journey. He had resigned from his academic posts, canceled
long-term concert and lecture contracts and was totally dependent on a small
band of friends for help. Only their love, support and encouragement made it
possible for him to go forward... 'Thus,' he later wrote, 'on the understanding that I would avoid
everything that could cause offense to the missionaries and their converts in
their belief, my offer was accepted with the result that one member of the
Committee sent his resignation.'"

In March 1913, Dr. and Mrs. Schweitzer left for Africa to build the hospital at
Lambaréné in the French Congo, now Gabon. They began their health care delivery
in a chicken coop, and gradually added new buildings, so the hospital now
treats thousands of patients.

The
rest of Schweitzer's life experiences and history have literally filled many
volumes. One year after their arrival at Lambaréné, World War I broke out.
Because of their German citizenship, the Schweitzers were enemy aliens in the
French colony. From the first prisoner of war camp in the Pyrenees, they were
taken to a camp in St. Remy. Here, Schweitzer had odd feelings of déjà vu,
feeling as though he knew the room from
some past experience. He could not lay his fingerupon his strange sense of acquaintance and intimacy with the room, and
began to wonder if he was losing his mind... Then awoke one night, the mystery
solved: a Van Gogh picture glowed in his mind's eye... he remembered the Van
Gogh drawing of which he had vaguely been thinking and recalled that the
tortured artist had once been confined for a mental breakdown in the south of
France. Upon inquiry in the morning, he learned that the building had
previously served as a mental institution and was indeed the very same building
where Van Gogh had spent four miserable, hopeless months before his suicide.

In 1918, Albert and Helen returned to Alsace, where their daughter Rhena was
born on January 14, 1919. In 1920, he was invited to give a lecture in Sweden
and there he described how, while being rowed up the Ogowe River from
Lambaréné, his search for an expression of his philosophy was answered: There flashed upon my mind the phrase
Reverence for Life." "Man's ethics must not end with man, but should
extend to the universe. He must regain the consciousness of the great chain of
life from which he cannot be separated. He must understand that all creation
has its value... Life should only be negated when it is for a higher value and
purpose - not merely in selfish or
thoughtless actions. What then results for man is not only a deepening of
relationships, but a widening of relationships.

But when he returned to Africa in 1924, Helene Bresslau Schweitzer and Rhena stayed
behind in Europe. Helene, to her sorrow, was not well enough to accompany her
husband. However, they corresponded frequently. Rhena saw little of her father
during her childhood, but when her own children were grown, Rhena acquired
technical lab skills and left for Africa to serve with her father. Dr.
Schweitzer asked her to take over the role of Administrator of the hospital
after his death, and when he passed away at the age of 90, Rhena did fill that
role for many years. Subsequently she married an American doctor volunteering
at the hospital, Dr. David Miller, and lived with him in rural Georgia until
his death in 1997. She remains active in and devoted to the interests of her
father, and, among other projects, prepared for publication the numerous letters
exchanged by her parents during the ten years prior to their marriage in 1912.

Dr.
Schweitzer's fame became increasingly widespread over the years, and many
journalists and other curious people flocked to Lambaréné to see him in action.
But even -- perhaps especially -- here his ingenious individuality asserted
itself. Dr. Schweitzer was frequently known to say that "everyone must
find his own Lambaréné." He formulated what he lived in the words,
"My life is my argument." In 1953, at the age of 78, Dr. Schweitzer
was honored for his humanitarian work with the Nobel Peace Prize for the year
1952. After he received the prize, although all his life he had avoided
becoming engaged in politics, Dr. Schweitzer was profoundly disturbed by the
development of nuclear weapons following the bombing of Hiroshima/Nagasaki.
Thus, with the urging of many friends, he studied the issue and in 1957 he issued
a worldwide public appeal, ADeclaration of Conscience.
Schweitzer published this with two subsequent appeals in 1958 in his book, Peace
or Atomic War?, which remains as relevant and compelling today as it
was 34 years ago, given the proliferation of nuclear weapons since that
time.

One perhaps little-known aspect of Dr. Schweitzer's personality was his sense
of humor. To cite just two examples of many: Once, in the middle of a banquet
in his honor, Dr. Schweitzer was being pestered to the point of harassment by a
journalist who simply did not understand the philosophy of Reverence for Life
and repeatedly demanded that Dr. Schweitzer elaborate it for him. Finally he said, 'Reverence for Life means
all life. I am a life. I am hungry. You should respect my right to eat.' With
that, he excused himself and returned to the banquet. The second example
deals with a very common faux pas which it may surprise you to learn that Dr.
Schweitzer was well aware of. He reported...
that once he was traveling on a train in Americawhen two girls came up to him and asked: 'Dr. Einstein, will you give
us your autograph?' 'I did not want to disappoint them,' he said, 'so I signed
their autograph book: Albert Einstein, by his friend Albert Schweitzer.

Physician, lover of animals, minister, scholarly theologian, environmentalist
(Rachel Carson dedicated her seminal work Silent Spring to him), musician and
musical scholar, anti-nuclear activist, philosopher, husband, father, friend --
these are the many facets of Dr. Albert Schweitzer. Today, although in some
quarters history is already painting him as a controversial figure, and several
different ism's" are being
attributed to him, one fact remains immutable: In the words of his friend
Albert Einstein, Schweitzer "did not preach and did not warn and did not
dream that his example would be an ideal and comfort to innumerable people. He
simply acted out of inner necessity.

Albert Schweitzer died in Lambaréné several months after his 90th birthday the
September 4. 1965.

***

Quotes by Albert Schweitzer

Success
is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what
you are doing, you will be successful.

The
purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help
others.

Sometimes
our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us
owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.

Happiness
is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

The
first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human
beings.

Never
say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something
to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.

Example
is leadership.

Do
something wonderful, people may imitate it.

Let
me give you a definition of ethics: It is good to maintain and further life it
is bad to damage and destroy life.

There
are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

The
willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which
resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and
frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than
those of a loftier character.

Example
is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.